President Obama commutes sentences of 22 drug offenders
President Obama has commuted the sentences of 22 drug offenders, including four supported by the ABA-backed Clemency Project. Press releases from the ABA and the Clemency Project have more. Politico also has a story.
All 22 were serving long sentences—in several cases, life in prison—for a drug-related conviction. The commutations, issued Tuesday, will shorten their sentences but leave the convictions on their records. All but one of the recipients will be released in late July; the other had eight years and two months shaved from his 30-year sentence. All retain the periods of supervised release ordered in their original sentences.
Families Against Mandatory Minimums highlighted the personal story of recipient Donel Clark, who was sentenced to 35 years in prison for cooking crack cocaine. According to FAMM, even the prosecutor at Clark’s trial acknowledged that the mandatory minimum was too harsh, and that Clark has worked hard in prison to improve himself and maintain a “perfect disciplinary record.” The commutation grants him release roughly four years early, by FAMM’s calculations.
“For far too long, this nation went down the road of locking up nonviolent offenders and throwing away the keys without any regard for the value of these people and the damage that mass incarceration does to families, communities and to our entire society,” Clemency Project 2014 project director Cynthia Roseberry said in a press release. “It is my fervent hope that what we have seen today is only the beginning.”
The grants include the first four commutations issued with help from the Clemency Project 2014, the volunteer project that is helping to prepare clemency petitions. Last year, the Justice Department announced the president planned to grant clemency to the many people serving long sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. Officials called on the private bar for help, and the Clemency Project eventually formed in response.
The project is unprecedented in its use of private volunteers, its extremely large scope—about 28,000 prisoners have asked it for help—and its potential to change the way presidents use their clemency power.
The ABA Criminal Justice Section is one of the five organizations leading the Clemency Project, along with the Federal Defenders, FAMM, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the ACLU.
The Clemency Project will likely continue to review and submit prisoners’ petitions throughout the remainder of the Obama administration, and welcomes more volunteers.
